Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Reflections on: #MayIBeginYoga 2016 Round 2 and 30 Days of Yoga!

Hi everyone!

Today I am going to talk about the second round of the One Month Beginner Yoga Challenge.
You can find my Reflections and a Review on my first round here, where I also go more into detail about the actual challenge.
I already decided on doing a second round while I was on Day 20 of my first round. It wasn`t a difficult decision to make.
The first round had helped me so much and had brought me so much inner piece.
The usual impulsive me stayed calm during situations that would usually have made me furious.
So it was a decision that came naturally as a result of the experiences I made during the second round.

So today I first want to let you know what stayed the same. Obviously the videos were the same and since I had already gone through it once you might think that round two must have been way easier than round one.
To be honest for me it wasn`t any easier. The first ten days were exactly the same as during the first round. They were frustrating and hard.
But and here comes the difference: During the first round a lot of things had been new and my muscles were a lot weaker and by that it was hard in the way of lacking strength and having to take breaks. Whereas during round two it was hard because I knew so much more about the pose and I "worked" for it. I knew which muscles had to work, I knew the alignment and that made the poses hard in that way that now I worked. Not that I did not work during the first round. I worked hard but I was more holding on to dear life than actually enjoying and acknowledging the pose. Whereas now my focus was on the pose and not on where my bodyparts had to be.
So the first ten days were as tough as the first round but in a different way.

The next twenty days were the same as in round one in the way that I got to enjoy them more and they were less frustrating but then again they were so different.
I was so much further in my practice.
The chaturangas became easier and was so much more flexible than during round one that poses that I felt like never ever being able to do improved so much that I was now a lot closer. I am still far away from the headstand and the dolphin pose but to that I must say that I have very weak shoulders and that I am really afraid of these poses and rather want to build them up slowly and then once I am there they will probably feel way better than if I would just force my body.

So that is basically it to the second round of the one month beginner yoga challenge.

But I didn`t just do this challenge. I decided on pairing it up with 30 Day of Yoga by Yoga with Adriene.
I did this challenge the first time in 2015 at the beginning of my journey. I loved it but I felt it was so challenging that I couldn`t enjoy it.
Now with growing my practice in Ashtanga Yoga I felt I could see if this Hatha Yoga Challenge would be more enjoyable for me too.
And it was. Doing Kinos Challenge did help me improve over all and with more strength and flexibility 30 Days of Yoga was so much fun. It was not easy in a way of it being less tough. But now I know how the poses work anatomy wise which made it easier to me. I am someone who needs to understand the anatomy to do the poses right and get the full benefits out of them. So this time the challenge was as if I was flying. I sweated a lot but I didn`t need breaks I wasn`t holding on for dear life in downward dog (I actually find it quiet relaxing now) and I could just enjoy it and turn my mind inwards and focus on myself as I had to focus less on not falling out of a pose (I hope this makes sense as it is really difficult for me to describe it).

So combining these two challenges for round 2 was a great idea and helped me a lot in growing my practice.

Would I do it again? - Yes of course.
Would I recommend it? - Depending on your fitness level I would say begin with one challenge and then work your way up. If you are already having a practice then definetly go for it if you feel for it.
Which approach do I like better? - I would say that depends on the person. I love Yoga with Adriene and I have done it for over a year before I started the Challenge by Kino Yoga. I would definetly say the Challenge by Kino helped me a lot in getting a deeper understanding of the pose and it makes you build up faster to the actual poses but it is definetly tougher than Adriene when it comes to strength. So I think it is something you have to be ready for.

So these are my reflections of round two and combining it with 30 Days of Yoga. I hope you liked this post and maybe it inspired you in some way.
Let me know if you are doing any of these challenges and how you liked them in the comments below.

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